Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“Like you are trying to buy me now?”

He laughed in spite of himself. “Pepito, you are very sharp,” he said brightly. “Of course! This is why I brought you here. To convince you. Living in that dump, working for that priest — that is not your future, hijo. Your future is much brighter. The gates of Pobres Park are open to everyone, you know that. You are welcome — as long as you abide by the rules. Let the scum fight for the crumbs. Ours is the cake. And we are not going to give this cake away. No, hijo. We cannot lose. Can you not see? If anarchy comes, do you know what will happen? We are in the movement, too, as you already know. We are promoting it, with friends like you. As for the genuine rebels, like Ka Lucio, we will see to it that they are either discredited or destroyed. We have no room for them. And if the government — meaning the president — decides to put an end to the anarchy and declare a dictatorship, excellent!”

“I do not follow,” I said, although everything was falling neatly into place; Juan Puneta was not really telling me anything new.

“Have you forgotten that we have money? We send our children to the best schools — Paris, London, Boston — well, some of them may have flirted with communism, with socialism, that is the privilege of youth. But they are ours, they know where their interests lie. They are not going to be traitors to their class. They are everywhere — in business, in government, in politics. They know what is happening. They know what is going to happen. With brains, you are always one step ahead.”

“I still do not understand,” I said, urging him on.

He was now the epitome of eloquence: “We—” he said with a flourish of hands, “we are going to be here for a long time. As a matter of fact, for always. We know how to change, and that is why we will always be on top. But the change comes from us, dictated by us. And as for the president, his interests are with us; he is one of us! Not with the masses — ha, the masses! That’s wonderful for speeches. They could not care less for the class struggle, for ideology. Do you know, Pepito, that all they want is a roof over their heads? And three bowls of rice a day? You yourself said that. And most of all, they want a sense of order, of security. It is really that simple. Their perception of the world, of society, is dictated by their needs, and we will give them what they want, slowly, slowly. Never the pie. Just the crumbs. It has to be that way. In trade, our labor must be cheap so that we can compete. Yes, we will talk about social justice, land reform, but we will not give these in cash or in kind. We have to keep them nailed to the plow, to the machine — and we will do it deliberately because cheap labor is one of our real assets. And we will not give it up. The president— Any leader will understand it, approve of it. The president is with us. He likes to be surrounded by people who understand the impulses of power. Only the powerful know what these are. And the powerful are the rich. We will flock around him — pamper him, kowtow to him, and then suffocate him! And he won’t even realize it, for this is what dictators have always been — partial to panderers. How dictators love them! Study your history books, Pepito. Have they really abolished the elite in Moscow? In Peking? They will always be with us, like death and taxes.”

“Like death,” I said quietly. “But why are you telling me all this?”

“Because I want you to know. So that you will work for us.”

“And what will I get?”

“Anything you need. The future is not with the poor, you know that. It is always with the rich.”

“How did you get that way?”

“By exploiting the poor. I love exploiting the poor.” He laughed quickly, but his laughter sounded hollow.

“It was more than that.” I remembered his ancestry. “You are very proud of your ancestry. But your grandfather sold out the revolution and went over to the Spaniards. Then it was the Americans, and the Japanese. Now you will subvert the revolution again and claim it as yours.”

“That is the way it has always been,” he grinned. “The elite always wins in the end, Pepito. How can you ever get rid of it? How can you ever run the country without the elite? And the masses don’t make revolution, you know that, too.”

“Have you read Antonio Samson’s book?”

He nodded. “A lot of meaningless phrases strung together with hypocrisy. He married into the Villa family, you know that.”

“He committed suicide,” I said.

“That’s a joke,” he laughed again. “Not after marrying into the Villas. Why should he kill himself?”

“Some people are convinced he committed suicide,” I insisted.

“Suicide, accident, does it matter? The important thing is that he married into the Villa family. And Don Manuel never tires of talking about him, particularly now in his senility! As if Samson was some genius, merely because he had a Harvard Ph.D. The doors are wide open to those who are bright, Pepito. And one of the shortcuts is marriage — if you have what it takes. You can marry Betsy—” he shook a finger at me, insinuating that he knew.

“She has left; she is in New York,” I said.

“You can follow her, hijo ,” he said. “You can easily go there. Scholarships — there are so many of them floating around. Or I can send you — if you would consider the price.”

“What do I have to do?” I was curious.

He clapped with enthusiasm, “Now you are really talking! First, hijo , there’s me, my personal needs — that’s not difficult for you. I am easy to please. Then help us, Pepito. We will control the Brotherhood. We’ll control Malacañang, the army, surround power centers with our people, who are more pliable, more understanding of our aspirations.”

The nationalist bourgeoisie — Professor Hortenso had warned us against them.

“Knowing all these now”—his chest thrust out, his eyes gleamed, and his thick lips pursed in satisfaction—“I hope you will not bargain too hard. After all, it is only money. It can easily be settled.”

“Why are you so sure about my price?”

He drew away, appraised me as if I were a hunk of meat, then said in that half-mocking, half-serious tone he always affected when he wanted to stress a point, “I still cannot understand how you did it … well, she is very pretty, but Nick said you knew there were a dozen of us behind that mirror.”

“Money,” I said, not bothering to explain or deny my performance with Kuya Nick’s mistress. “That is what made me do it.”

He came to me, gripped my shoulder. “I meant no offense, Pepito. This is what I like about you. You know what you want. Some time soon you should consider having a male partner like me. It could be more interesting. And pleasurable. I pay much, much more. I am glad it is so easy to talk with you. Still, I couldn’t understand how you could do it.”

“Or how any other toro can do it?”

“Yes!”

I wanted to tell him of the great difference between body and spirit, that this separateness was always clear to those who knew. Puneta may have traveled widely, traversed diverse regions of the mind and wallowed in the pleasures of the body, but he had never made that crossing that would deem him more than an effete bundle of nerves; he would never understand why prostitutes would heave and moan and have their bodies possessed but would never allow their mouths to be kissed. He would never understand, and I would not now explain it to him.

“It is all a matter of will,” I said.

“Will, determination, single-mindedness. You have it, Pepito. This is the single most important factor in any enterprise, whether it is playing toro or modernizing a country. Only those with will can achieve. And we will modernize this country,” he exalted, “the way only we can do it. Go back to your Asian history. It was not the peasants who changed Japan; it was the elite — the shoguns, the samurai. And that is what we are.”